Tag Archives: ParallelPeriod

To get “Year To Date” and “Last Year To Date” in MDX we can use the YTD function. To get “Last Year To Date” we also have to use the “ParallelPeriod” function. The “ParallelPeriod” gives us the same dates for an other period. In this case we switch back one year.

This code will work in Analysis Services Multidimensional. If you want to do the same for “Month to date”, “Quarter to date” or similar you can change YTD to MTD or QTD. If you plan to use week you should use an other hierarchy and then change to WTD.

I would recommend you to add this functionality as calculations in the cube. There are several great scripts out there for you to copy. Such as DateTool by Marco Russo.

These samples can be run against the AdventureWorks cube in Multidimensional mode. To avoid error messages please make sure your time dimension has the members for the date you are comparing with. In this case 15 february 2011 has to exists in the time dimension. The -364 approach will have issues if last year was a leap years.